For the 519th Soundtrack of the Week
we're doing something super mainstream and popular.
We wouldn't do it if it weren't really good!
But we listened to this entire original Broadway
cast recording while driving home from
the Norman Rockwell Museum and we were won over.
We're talking about Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton:
An American Musical.

While I haven't actually seen this musical, almost the
entire thing is told in songs, so listening to this
album allows you to follow the story easily.

It's quite a story, too, and tempts me to read Ron Chernow's
biography of Hamilton, which was Miranda's inspiration.
But I can barely keep up with all my pocket paperback
genre fiction. It's not likely that I'll start reading
books written for grown-ups.

Miranda's songs are very impressive and almost
always joyful and thrilling. While pop music has been
taking an extremely loose and too often lazy approach
to rhyme, the musical theatre world is still fairly
strict about song form. I don't think that "Not a soul
up ahead and nothing behind / There's a desert in my blood
and a storm in your eyes" would pass muster for a Broadway
show.

Which makes Miranda's accomplishment all the more impressive.
Musically compelling and propulsive, capable of switching
from blood-pumping dance to tear-jerking emotion,
the music itself declares its independence from
any kind of limiting category, borrowing gold
from the treasure chest of whatever genre it likes,
for a song, a line, a moment.

And the lyrics are dazzling in the same way,
serving the demands of story, plot and character
as well as the demands of song, namely meter and rhyme,
always making sense and only rarely calling attention
to themselves.

Certain themes weave in and out of the story with
significant variations that accompany the changed
circumstances of the characters. Phrases such
as "The room where it happens" and "Who
tells your story?" acquire a greater and more
meaningful resonance as you proceed.

The genius of the lyrics doesn't always come
across on the page but with the music they
soar. Take for example "Aaron Burr, Sir",
which has a Dr. Seuss-like sense and silliness
about it and manages rhymes such as "It's a blur,
sir" with "You punched the bursar".

Equally enchanting is Miranda's use of
non-lyrics. George III, who appeared to be
losing his grip on both his sanity and
his colonies, ends his three songs with
an incredibly catchy sort of scat singing.

Hamilton might remind you of some
old friends. "Wait For It" is a bit like that
big Coldplay hit, for instance, and "Stay
Alive" is very James Bond.
In addition to writing all this stuff, Miranda
plays Hamilton and his singing voice is absolutely
perfect for it.

So there you go. I might actually have to see
Hamilton now and I sure didn't expect that!